The National Solar Mission, a SEMI India perspective

INDIA: Policy and government support for solar PV in India continues to strengthen driven by the country’s push to meet its vast power needs and still growing deficit as well as the need to move to clean and renewable sources of electricity. Recent months have seen activity on key policy fronts.

Momentum on India’s National Solar Mission has been growing, and once fully operational it could open up enormous opportunities as well as supply side challenges across the PV supply chain for Indian and global PV companies. The NSM and a recent scheme from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy to promote urban solar PV applications are outlined.

The National Solar Mission background
On August 3, 2009, the Government of India announced ‘in principle’ approval, in New Delhi, of the goal of the National Solar Mission (NSM) to achieve 20,000 MW of solar power generation (both PV and thermal) in the country by the year 2020.

Now christened the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, after India’ first Prime Minister, it is one of eight missions that form the core of India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). The NSM’s 20 GW target reflects an increase of over two orders of magnitude from India’s current installed PV power generation capacity.

A draft version of the NSM that has been in public circulation for a few months calls out the following longer term targets as well:Source: SEMI India

Other targets called out in the draft NSM are:
* India solar manufacturing capacity ramp to 4-5 GW by 2017.
* Target to electrify 3 million households by 2012 and 20 million by 2020.
* Target of 1 million rooftop systems by 2020.

Financial provisioning approaches to enable these plans include:
* INR 5,000 crore (~US$ 1B) initial investment by the Government in a ‘solar fund’ by 2012 with continuing contributions thereafter;
* Total government funding of up to INR 92,000 crores (~US$18.4b) over a 30 year period via a variety of incentives, grants, subsidies, etc.;
* Fund generation is proposed through a ‘cess’ (taxation) on coal, petrol, and diesel, direct budgetary allocations and possibly via international funding through mechanisms under the UNFCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change).

The announcement of the Government’s ‘in principle’ approval has enthused India PV industry leaders several of whom have welcomed the move as one that would bring the benefits of scale to local manufacturers and even larger benefits to the country as a whole.

The opportunities, even in the timeframe until 2020, presented by such an expansion, are enormous both for India’s domestic PV industry as well as for global PV players in every segment of the PV supply chain – from cells and modules to PV systems (both off and on grid) and in project implementation and maintenance.

Stayed tuned for updates on November 16, 2009, directly following SOLARCON India 2009 (November 9-11, 2009, Hyderabad, India), being held in association with Intersolar India 2009. SOLARCON India’s technical conference will spark relevant discussions that will bring the spotlight to bear on this potentially transformational piece of legislation that could usher in a solar revolution in the country.

Source: SEMI USA/SEMI India